Using Mosaico vs Mailchimp with CiviCRM

Do you use CiviCRM as your email database? This article is for you.

Many of our clients using CiviCRM have switched to using Mosaico in order to leverage the power of their CiviCRM database for their email mailings. Mosaico most commonly gets compared with MailChimp, because they both have a visual drag and drop interface. Here are the pros and cons of both.

Leverage your CiviCRM database with Mosaico.

Mosaico is essentially an extension that overhauls the default CiviCRM html editor into a drag and drop email builder. Mosaico is installed within CiviCRM and is capable of leveraging your CiviCRM database. By far, this is the number one reason our clients have chosen Mosaico over MailChimp. Mosaico is directly within CiviCRM, whereas MailChimp is a separate third party email solution. In order to use MailChimp with CiviCRM you’re limited to exporting contacts from Civi and importing into MailChimp.

Let’s face it, MailChimp is a superior email platform. We get it. MailChimp is a far more user friendly and enjoyable experience for building attractive email campaigns. MailChimp provides a vast range of templates that can be easily customized and they are continuously developing new features for advanced marketing tactics. If compared head-to-head with Mosaico, MailChimp edges a win for its layout capabilities.

Mosaico Pros and Cons

Pros: Why you should use Mosaico

The layout builder is far easier to use than CiviCRM’s standard text/html editor

It’s an email builder your whole team can use

It’s installed directly on CiviCRM which gives you the best integration for leveraging your CiviCRM database and contacts

Email reports are basic, but give you important stats you need like open rates, click tracking, and opt-outs

Cons: Things you should consider

Mosaico has some layout bugs. As of this article, centering and right aligning text can be an issue. (There are manual fixes available for this.)

Layout is limited to what Mosaico gives you.

Custom layouts are possible, but can be expensive to implement.

MailChimp Pros and Cons

Pros: Why you should use MailChimp

The variety of layouts and ease-of-use is phenomenal.

It’s an email builder your whole team can use.

When set up correctly, MailChimps segmenting and marketing tools are more extensive than CiviCRM.

The user interface is attractive and ease for most people to use.

Cons: Things you should consider

If you want to sync your lists from CiviCRM to MailChimp, we find a manual approach works the best for most clients.

CiviCRM data is outside the MailChimp workflow.

Requires more attention to keep your mailing lists up to date

Which newsletter option will you choose?

Our clients that use CiviCRM are nearly split down the middle on this one. We find that those who value tighter integrations typically opt for Mosaico, whereas those who require more advanced or flexible layouts will opt for MailChimp or a similar 3rd part provider. If you value both, give both a try or request a customized mosaico theme. If you need help making a decision, send us a message and we’ll help you sort it out.